Managing skilled worker turnover at a small job shop

What happens when a small metal fabrication job shop has skilled-worker turnover? Getty Images

Barnes MetalCrafters has been through a lot of changes recently. To be honest, some of the changes have been a blur. They’ve been happening so fast in large quantities that it’s been hard to take in. Most of the changes have been good, but others have come with some sacrifices, restructuring, and recruitment.

Personnel changes are always going to be a challenge in any small shop. Good or bad, you can’t help what families need to do or want to do. We had one employee leave very unexpectedly, and within a few days another employee put in a three-month notice.

The three-month guy happened to be one of our tenured fabricators, George Boydstun. We lost him due to a family decision to move out west to New Mexico to be with some extended family. He told me he didn’t want to leave but it was best for the family at that time. I very much respect that decision, as family is very important to me too. George wasn’t your average 9-to-5 employee. He went above and beyond, and often saw problems with fabrications before it was too late. Finding the next job or task came naturally to him, and it was completed in a diligent manner. We like that. Every shop likes that.

With the two changes happening close together, we had to do some recruiting. We called up a recruiter and decided to get the ball rolling. I even contacted another friend to see if he had any advice on how they found employees in the aviation industry. That turned out to be a great choice as within roughly five weeks, we found an engineer, William “Vasili” Brown. He moved right into stride with the shop. As we were passing him jobs, each one was a little more challenging. But he was comfortable with the work flow.

Shortly after we found a fabricator, Corey Harr, who George could mentor for the remainder of his stay. That was the master plan, anyway. But, as always, there is never enough time to train when you can see the time coming to an end. Overall, the new fabricator has been pretty good. It is hard to compare a new guy to a tenured employee since he had so much time invested in learning the shop culture.

The tunnel of training came to an end and George said his goodbyes. He actually left in a U-Haul right from the shop. It was kind of surreal since I got so used to hanging out with this character for several years. Let’s face it, every shop needs a George. So, without one, it was going to be strange.

The saying “you don’t know what ya got until it’s gone” comes to mind. Now that he was gone, the unanswered started to sink in. The new guy could learn only so much in that mentoring time period. Simple things are always taken for granted when the answer is always by your side. The new guy wanted to know what was next. Vasili and I started to get question after question about drawings and parts. These were all new to Vasili, but I haven’t been asked some of these questions in years. They’ve always been handled by George.

George kept tabs on the little parts needed to complete assemblies and often went straight to the laser operator to ask him to work them if there was time. This made it easy on all of us in the shop. We never had to worry about it. The new guy will get to that point soon, but there will be a learning curve.

One advantage we have with the new shop compared to the old facility is the ability to be more organized. So if I could say one thing positive about these two employee changes, it would be that this is an opportunity to improve our processes or get new ones established.

I know everything is going to work out in the long run. Change is inevitable so we need to embrace it. Without a doubt, one of the biggest changes without George at the shop will have to go unsaid. He had a way of making everyone smile with his odd humor and unusual ways. I’ll just leave it at that.

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